New Osceola museum showcases county's history, natural beauty

Grand opening is Saturday for $2.25 million center

Osceola County's new Welcome Center and HIstory Museum features exhibits on its past as well as natural resources. An exhibit helps tell the story of the area's past (and present) cattle business.
(George Skene, Orlando Sentinel / November 8, 2012)

Along Kissimmee's busy tourist corridor, Osceola County has opened an attraction that spotlights the area's history and natural beauty.

The new Osceola County History Museum and Welcome Center, which will have its grand opening Saturday, offers visitors a look at what lies beyond the blight that afflicts much of U.S. Highway 192. The county spent about $2.25 million to build the center in a former Roadhouse Grill restaurant building.

Some exhibits, including prehistoric stone tools and a Seminole Indian canoe dating from the 1750s, delve into the county's distant past.

Other photos and objects recall the area's more recent past as a hub for steamship traffic and the citrus, timber and cattle industries. Still other exhibits highlight local wildlife and ecosystems such as marshes and hammocks.

The Osceola County Historical Society operates the center. Donnita Dampier, the society's executive director, calls the museum a "unique facility. We've been able to bring the nature and the history together in one place."

Dampier said that even though no marketing has been done yet, the center is averaging about 30 visitors a day from word-of-mouth, with more people stopping by on weekends.

"It's been really well received," she said.

Most of the Native American artifacts, Dampier said, were unearthed by home builder Avatar along Reedy Creek during the development of Poinciana.

The exhibits also offer looks at an earlier era of tourism, including turn-of-the-century hotels and an early 1900s "ride-through" saloon in Kissimmee where cowboys on horseback could order whiskey.

Dampier's organization also operates the nearby Pioneer Village and Museum, which features a collection of late-1800s structures from throughout the county. She's optimistic that the welcome center will boost visits to the Pioneer Village, and vice versa.

County Commissioner Michael Harford said he sees the center, along with the nearby Shingle Creek Regional Park and other planned projects, as "the beginnings of an eco-niche that we can try to fill."

Harford said he foresees eco-tourists leaving from the center and canoeing down Shingle Creek. "By the time you go 300 yards down the creek, you couldn't tell you were this close to civilization."